


episode vii: a jedi's beginning

by paranypmh



Series: Star Wars: The Kai Wars (Sequels Rewrite) [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It, Multi, Rewrite, anti reylo, anti-reylo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23687860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paranypmh/pseuds/paranypmh
Summary: It’s been thirty years since the Galactic Empire’s downfall, and thirteen years since Luke Skywalker disappeared from the watchful eye of the galaxy and its people. In a desperate search for the powerful Jedi who killed Darth Vader, the First Order rises. Rising against them? A traumatized Stormtrooper and a young woman with amnesia.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Series: Star Wars: The Kai Wars (Sequels Rewrite) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705834
Comments: 13
Kudos: 18





	1. He Awakens

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Star Wars Episode VII: A Jedi's Beginning!  
> This is BOOK ONE of a TRILOGY where I rewrite the Star Wars Sequels trilogy.
> 
> REWRITE OF: The Force Awakens (2015)  
> NOTE: This first book is the one that is the most like its movie, so I do keep some of the scenes the same (not all of them, though!)

Silence.

It was beautiful, really; the silence passed over the sand and breathed life into the homes in the equally sandy village, and everything was at peace. Quiet, and swaying with the wind. The old man gave something—a small leather pouch, closed tightly with a string—to the younger man with dark hair in his hut, squeezing the latter’s hand around the object as if to keep it safe from the silky darkness on Jakku. He squeezed the pouch in his hand, feeling its content’s corners poke at his calluses as the little spherical droid at his side beeped at him from the floor.

“I’ve travelled too far too long and have seen far too much,” the old man said, reaching a hand to scratch his white beard as he leaned back in his seat, “to ignore the pain that plagues the galaxy. This item in your hand will heal what’s been wrong and sew the loose ends together once again. When the Jedi return, the Force will balance once again,”

The younger man smiled, shoving the pouch into a safe pocket of his vest against his breast, “Thanks to you, hopefully that balance can come a lot sooner. The General’s been lookin’ for this for a long, long time,”

The older man scoffed at the title, the ghost of a smile trying to pull at the corners of his lips, “The _General_...to an old man like me, she will always be royalty. Well, she certainly still is, even if that home has long since been destroyed—”

The little robot at the feet of the men beeped frantically, rolling in circles as it motioned towards the door. The man with the dark hair turned towards the older man, whose eyes were just as wide as his. The two of them made it to the window, seeing the arrival of enemy ships towards the quiet home of the sandy planet.

“Looks like we’ve got company,” the younger man ran out the door with his droid and the older man, the ships seeming to come faster than the young man can run as their lights over the horizon almost blind him. He and his company come to a stop as he pants heavily, his chest rising and lowering painfully as he raised his quadnoculars to his face to see more clearly through the blinding lights.

Four.

“ _Shit_ ,” he hissed to himself, shoving the quadnoculars back into his vest and turning toward the older man, “You have to hide,”

“And _you_ have to leave,”

The dark haired man pressed his lips into a thin line, wanting so badly to stay there and protect the little village and the old man but knowing very well that his plan had only a bad ending for everyone involved. His nod is stiff as he and his droid run off away from the village and towards his fighter. He ran through the village people, all of whom made their way out of their houses with means of protection for themselves and their home. It was obvious they weren’t going to go out without a fight.

He couldn’t turn around, his legs aching more and more with each step, but he felt the ground rumble as the fleet made landfall and as the Stormtroopers marched out to defend their leader. He heard one gunshot rip through the silence of Jakku’s peace—and then there were a hundred, and he felt a rage of heat as a stray shot went through the pad of his vest on his shoulder. He only ran faster, finally catching sight of his X-Wing he had hidden in an onclove of a rock. His droid rolled beside him, though much slower, as the dark haired man hopped into the cockpit.

“BB-8, c’mon buddy!” the man waved his hand to coax his droid friend closer, the curls of his hair sticking to his forehead and the sides of his face, “hurry!”

The spherical droid rushed into his little seat in the cockpit, his pilot trying his best to hurry with the ship’s awakening from its not-too-long slumber since his arrival on the sand. The canopy closed slowly as its engines and lights rumbled and flickered with life. The young man rifled with all the buttons he needed, desperate to leave the planet as he watched Stormtroopers coming toward him in the distance. He was almost safe, and he could almost stop holding his breath, and he could almost make it home safe with his gift for who he referred to was ‘The General’.

And then shots were fired—specifically fired into the young man’s fighter. He turned around quickly, BB-8 beeping frantically.

“Don’t worry, bud,” he said, grabbing the controls of the fighter and shooting at the troopers coming toward them, “I got ‘em, don’t worry,”

He tried to force the fighter to rise, fly away and escape the danger he knew was coming, but the engine sputtered and wheezed. The young man jumped from his seat, concerned, but found the source of the problem—the rear engine panel had been hit with direct blasterfire from the troopers. It didn’t look good.

They were in trouble.

BB-8 rolled towards his friend, beeping nervously as the other knelt down, reaching for the leather pouch in his pocket. He pulled the string, grasping the old and fragile artifact from its spot and inserting it to his droid’s multi-reader. His hand touched the droid’s head, almost enveloping it in how big his hand was by comparison.

“You’re much safer with it than I am,” he whispered, hurried as he looked at the sparks that popped from the engine, “I want you to get as far away from here as you can, you hear me?”

BB-8 beeped, worried, and the man just gave a short laugh, “I’ll be okay. I’ll come back for you. Now go, quickly. BB!”

The droid watched as his friend sprinted back towards the city engulfed in blasterfire and flames, his own weapon drawn and ready to fire at oncoming troopers. BB-8 whined to himself before rolling in the opposite direction.

Beyond the young man and his droid was the village of Tuanul, blasters shooting and people and Stormtroopers alike dying in every direction. Two troopers stood together, shooting and covering each other’s back. One trooper fell, crying out from the pain as he leaned against a nearby rock. The other turned quickly from the sound, dropping his weapon as he watched the blood seep between his fallen comrade’s fingers.

He knelt down, pushing his hand against his partner’s to try and stop the bleeding to no avail. The fallen trooper reaches their own soaked hand to his face, and in their last breath they leave their bloody handmark streaked across his helmet. Suddenly, he felt aware of his surroundings—hyperaware, even, as the blasters fired again and more people, civilians, cried out in pain and in mourning, and as he searched the fire he saw other Stormtroopers fall from misfires and from civilians fighting against them and their cause. He felt his chest rise and fall with each and every painful breath, and for a moment he felt like he couldn’t breath. The air stabbed into his lungs, and his hands reached for the blaster that he had dropped before he went running from his fallen fellow Stormtrooper. He couldn’t run, though; he was trapped in the lights and the fire and the noise, before the rumbling and sound of an imposing shuttle craft coated in the darkness of night landed nearby. That was the only thing to snap the Stormtrooper from his daze.

He turned to look toward the craft that had opened its hatch to reveal the Stormtrooper’s leader; a tall, menacing figure, completely cloaked in the darkness of his uniform and fists stiff at his sides as he walked through the flames toward the old man and the remaining, surrendering citizens of the burning city. A senior Stormtrooper made their way to the other with his marked helmet.

“Stay here,” they ordered, and the marked trooper nodded as he stiffened with his blaster ready. All of his still-breathing comrades mimicked his stance.

The leader of the troopers stopped in front of the old man, his shadow covering the other and the man’s mouth in a thin line. He couldn’t see the other’s face through the dark, war-ridden mask he wore, but he knew him. They both knew.

“San Tekka,” the masked man spit the old man’s name in his own face. He nodded in acknowledgement, his eyes never leaving the mask of his village’s attacker. The metal insets of the leader’s mask reflected the flames that engulfed the homes and bodies around them, and for a moment it looked as though he was breathing fire.

“Kylo Ren,”

“Look at how you’ve aged,”

“Something far worse,” San Tekka’s eyes glanced the other man up and down, from his mask to his feet in a strong, fear-inducing power stance, “has happened to you,”

Behind the leader, the marked trooper and his allies were aligned shoulder to shoulder, weapons taut against their chests and ready for fire. The marked wished he wouldn’t have to shoot another soul again, though he knew the chances were slim. He watched the old man and his leader talk, the flames inching closer with each word spoken as more bodies and homes and signs of life were burnt in the crossfire.

“I know you, son,” San Tekka took a step closer to the leader, who’s breath and body failed to react, “I know the you before this mask,”

“You have the map to Skywalker,” Kylo Ren ignored the old man’s words, continuing with his own agenda, “and you’re going to give it to the First Order.”

The young man finally made his way to the village, out of breath and face coated in his own blood and the blood of Stormtroopers he had killed on his way to the sandy, burning village of Tuanul. His breathing was heavy and his heart thudded fiercely against his ribs, but he knew that there was more to come if he didn’t save the old man.

“You were not raised from the darkness like the First Order, my son,” San Tekka continued, and for a moment the marked Stormtrooper and the young man that had just arrived thought the old man was trying to talk sense into the Order’s Supreme Leader, “you know that, don’t you?”

“You will see the dark side,”

“You may try to make me,” the old man smiled, bemused by the leader’s confidence, “but you know your family. You cannot deny them, or the truth.”

Kylo Ren reached for the lightsaber at his waist, igniting it and revealing its vibrant, furious color and its lashing anger in both the small, perpendicular blades and the long main blade, at least the length of his forearm.

“You’re right.”

With his words being the last of their conversation, the punctuation mark being the death of San Tekka as Kylo Ren made a clean swipe of his lightsaber against the older man’s breast and throat. The young man who had returned called out San Tekka’s name, emerging from his position and running at Kylo Ren and his company with his blaster at the ready.

Before he could shoot, Kylo Ren’s hand reached out, almost as though he was going to grab for the young man from ten feet away. The dark haired man struggled to move from the Force that was holding him in his running position, his blaster being ripped from his hands and pulled towards the man with the mask; the latter threw the weapon to the ground and, with a swift stomp of his foot, shattered it to pieces. Nearby troopers link their arms with those of the struggling man, dragging him toward their leader. Another trooper patted down at the man’s sides roughly as he stood, frozen, Kylo Ren gliding towards him with silent footsteps. The Stormtroopers at his sides kicked in his knees, making him fall roughly to the sand as the leader knelt before him, so close that the young man swore he felt the breath of the leader of the Stormtroopers on his face despite the mask that hid it.

“So who talks first?” the young man said, nodding toward the man in front of him, “You? Me? Well, I suppose I already—”

“The map,” Kylo Ren interrupted, and it was clear that he wasn’t in the mood for whatever jokes the young man tried to crack, “the old man gave it to you,”

The dark haired man motioned toward Kylo Ren’s mask, “You’re very hard to understand with all _this_ going on, did you know that? Doesn’t that make it hard to give people orders?”

The Supreme Leader didn’t laugh as he nodded to the Stormtroopers at either of his sides, “Search him.”

He stood tall, and the young man didn’t realize just _how_ tall until he was forced to stand up and was forced to realize the leader with the mask was over a head taller than him, dwarfing him just as he did San Tekka. Held against his will, the Stormtroopers did another brutal pat down before one of them turned toward their leader in his mask, “Nothing, sir,”

“Put him on board.”

With a single hand motion, Kylo Ren beckoned the head Stormtrooper in her chrome-skinned uniform with its black cape to come toward him. She walked with purpose, her blaster against her chest in uniform with her division.

“Captain Phasma,” he said, his voice not trying to be quiet near the surviving children and their parents, “kill the villagers. All of them.”

Phasma only nodded, turning toward the civilians that remained and stepping forward with her blaster raised and ready to fire.

“On my command!”

And for the next few moments, everything felt like it was a few minutes ago with the death of his comrade. The marked Stormtrooper could barely raise his gun to fire at who remained of Tuanul’s civilians, the blasterfire soon over as his company spread out to search the bodies that have yet to be engulfed in flames. He felt someone staring at him, and turned to meet the dead gaze of Kylo Ren’s helmet before he made it onto his ship, followed by the struggling young man they’d captured for information.

He tried to shake the feelings he had, the feelings of pain and betrayal for those he’d killed and seen killed and for the man he watched be captured, but he couldn’t. And, before long, he was back on the transport craft he had arrived in, going back to what he supposed was home on the Star Destroyer.


	2. Jakku's Scavenger

“FN-2187,” Captain Phasma said, and the marked Stormtrooper stopped in his tracks. After returning to the Star Destroyer, he had taken off his helmet—he felt claustrophobic in its confines, and the sweat poured down his face from his work and from his fears. He swallowed hard as the captain arrived next to him, her arms carrying her blaster with much more lax muscles than when they were in Tuanul.

“Who gave you permission to remove your helmet?”

FN-2187 nodded in compliance, placing the marked helmet into a nearby convoy to take it away and replacing it with a new, unmarked one, forcing it onto his head to match his comrades that surrounded every corner, “My apologizes, Captain,”

“And submit your blaster for inspection,”

“Yes, Captain,”

“Report to my division at once.”

With that as her final order, the captain turned on her heels and marched herself back down the hallway behind them, all other Stormtroopers making way for her as she passed. The no longer marked Stormtrooper, FN-2187, rolled his lips together, despite no one being able to see it, as the sweat continued to wet his face.

  
  
  


Jakku was beautiful at night, but the days were sometimes even better. The sand was warm, and it was coarse and it got into every crevice it could find, but the dunes provided protection from the sun if travellers hid underneath them during the right part of the day. It was that time of day—a scavenger took the path of shadows, much cooler compared to the unforgiving sun despite its welcoming warmth and orange hue, her speeder whizzing over the ground as a little trade village revealed itself from over the horizon. _Finally_ , she thought to herself, feeling the blisters already on her shoulder bubbling from the heat that hit her as she did her best to go faster towards the outpost that marked her destination.

She dragged herself to the cleaning station, roughly scrubbing at the grime and dirt caked on her salvage of the day at the cleaning station in the Niima Outpost. Across from her was another woman, older than her by too many years to count. The old woman wasn’t alone—with her was presumably her daughter, a baby strapped to her back as it slept soundly. The watching woman’s hands slowed down as she stared the two women whisper to each other, scrubbing away at their own salvagables. The curious woman watching them wondered what their story was—were they like her, or did they know who they were? What was their purpose, or did they lose it long ago? Was that baby going to be raised here, or would the other woman run off to find somewhere better, safer than Niima Outpost or Jakku, to raise her child?

One of the Outpost’s underlings barked at the woman, saying in their native tongue something akin to ‘get back to work’. The woman jumped, grasping at the salvaged parts she was cleaning before scrubbing at them again, more vigorous this time.

It felt like forever before she was finally done cleaning her salvageables, but she made it up to the counter and slapped her freshly washed goods on its steely surface. The alien behind the counter, a massive, burly being who the woman knew was Unkar Plutt, closely examined the pieces she had brought. Her eyes were squinted as she waited for his consensus.

“What you’ve brought me today is worth,” a low grumble bubbled in his throat, a volcano soon to erupt, as he examined a particular piece of scrap metal for a long time. Finally, he gave an answer to his own open-ended question, “one quarter portion.”

The woman was stiff, though skillfully masked her disappointment with a thankful nod. Through the transfer draw, Plutt pushed out her portion she’d earned from her work of the day. She took the contents sealed in its packet before going back to her speeder, travelling to the only place she’d ever call home.

  
  
  


With her ration of the evening cooked, a small loaf of bread and green meat cooked over a pitiful fire, the woman sat outside her dwelling, back against the rusting metal of the fallen ship she lived within. She looked into the sky—the sun was setting, the planet’s two moons slowly rising over the sand dunes from their slumber. She grabbed for her meal, scarfing it down and wondering how she didn’t choke on it while she licked the plate. At her side, she reached for the dusty and broken Rebellion helmet she’d found when she was much younger and smaller. She put the helmet on her head. Still too big; always too big, but that didn’t stop her from feeling like she belonged in it. Feeling like she belonged to something bigger, even though she knew better than to hope for that.

Suddenly, there were loud electronic squeals in the distance, not too far from her dwelling. She stood up and threw down the Rebellion helmet, reaching for her quarterstaff in its place in her hand and marching off to the squeals she heard.

A little ways beyond a nearby dune, she finally saw what the commotion was about—a Teedo, one of the many desert beings that the woman knew all too well, had captured a small, spherical droid in its net. The Teedo yelled at the little droid, who only squealed frantically in response. The woman only watched them for a moment before yelling at the Teedo.

“ _Tal’ama parqual!_ ”

Both of the beings in the struggle stopped their argument and looked at each other, then at the woman who had climbed the sand dune.

The woman’s eyes squinted at the Teedo atop his Luggabeast, “ _Parqual zatana!_ ”

The Teedo yelled something back at her, stopping himself as the woman made her way to the net with the captured droid. From her pocket she drew a knife, cutting free the spherical droid as it rejoiced. The Teedo yelled down at the woman with the knife, who only pointed her weapon back up at him as a threat.

“ _Noma,_ ” she warned, shaking her knife as the other just huffed in her direction, brushing her off as he and his Luggabeast made their way away from them and over the sand dune. The little droid beeped furiously at him while he left, but the woman only shushed it as she knelt down beside it.

The droid whirred, asking a question, to which the woman gave an answer, “That’s only Teedo. Got no respect for anyone, that one. He’d just sell you for parts...hey, your antenna’s bent,”

Her hands moved to the top of the droid’s head, straightening the antenna that sat at an uncomfortable, ninety-degree angle. As she straightened it, something told her to ask more.

“Where do you come from?”

The droid beeped in response, and the woman let out a huff of air in exchange for a laugh lost in her throat, “Classified, huh? Me too. Big secret,”

She’d finally straightened out the droid’s antenna, and pointed in the direction over the sand dune east of where she’d come from, “Niima Outpost’s that way, make sure to stay off Kelvin Bridge. And keep away from the Sinking Fields north of here, someone small as you’d drown in the sand.”

She made her way back down the way she’d come from the sand dune back to her salvaged home. She didn’t realize the little droid had been following her until it beeped at her, asking for attention.

“What? Don’t follow me. Niima Outpost isn’t where I’m going—”

The droid beeped again, and the woman huffed angrily, “No!”

The spherical being only beeped again, and the woman understood. It was alone—sad, and lost, and terribly alone, and a wave of understanding washed over her. That was her, too, though she wasn’t as small anymore.

She clenched her jaw, sighing and motioning her head for the droid to follow her towards her salvaged home.

“In the morning, I'll bring you to the Outpost, yeah?”

The droid whirred enthusiastically in thanks, and the woman smiled a little down at it, “You’re welcome.”

  
  
  
  


“I wasn’t aware we had the Resistance’s best pilot on board. Comfortable, Poe Dameron?”

He didn’t know how long he’d been out—he didn’t know if he’d been out at all to begin with, or if everything he felt was a horrible dream. The young man felt every bone and muscle in his body aching against the straps that held him against the chair, his lips bloody and cracked as he went to speak with a dry throat in response to the brutal and heartless Supreme Leader of the First Order.

“Not exactly,”

“I’m impressed,” Kylo Ren walked in a circle around Poe slowly, the heels of his boots clicking with each step and his hands clasped together behind his back, “not one of the people I’ve sent here has been able to get the location of the map out of you,”

The dark haired young man only smiled, though he winced from the pain as one of his scabbed over wounds opened again and bled, “Might wanna rethink your techniques, just sayin’,”

Kylo Ren made his full circle back to the front of Poe, and even with the mask on, he felt Kylo Ren’s dead stare at him. The man didn’t even have to raise his hand—Poe felt the pressure building in his mind, and he knew that no amount of willpower on his end could stop it. His brain felt like it was splitting apart, and it _hurt_. He knew his face showed the agony he was in, but his voice couldn’t express it. He refused to let it.

“Where is the map?”

“The Resistance,” he hissed through the pain and his clenched teeth, “will _never_ be intimidated by you,”

The pressure only built itself up in Poe’s brain; Kylo Ren knew that he’d have to break sometime. Some people were just tougher than others.

“ _Where is it?_ ”

  
  
  


It was the next morning on Jakku, and the woman had taken the little spherical droid to the Outpost on Jakku. During the night, the two got to talking—the only things the droid was allowed to reveal was its name, BB-8, and that his master had gone missing. The woman decided it was only fair to reveal about herself, too, or at least the same amount of reveal.

“My name’s Rey,” she said, her only mode of transportation picking up speed as the two made it closer and closer to the Outpost, “though I don’t know where it came from. That’s what Unkar Plutt’s always called me, and it’s what I go by. You and me aren’t so different, y’know? My family went missing a long time ago, I don’t know if I ever even really met them before I got put here. Just like you, I’m waiting,”

The two stopped at the Outpost, BB-8 being dropped onto the sand and Rey’s feet behind him. She nodded her head toward the Outpost, her satchel of salvaged parts on her shoulder, and the two of them made it to Plutt’s window. Her five pieces landed on the tray, but she saw Plutt’s eye glance elsewhere, down to the ground to her little droid that she’d taken in. She didn’t follow his gaze as he set it back onto her salvaged pieces of scrap metal.

“Let me see,” he took a close look at one of the pieces in his big, meaty fingers, that familiar rumble in his throat erupting again, “one half portion of all of it,”

Rey spoke up, her eyes squinting and upset, “Last week they were a half portion _each_! This should add up to two and a half, yeah?”

Plutt glared at the little woman at his window, but he leaned forward and kept his voice low, “What about the droid?”

Rey turned her head toward BB-8, who was taking in the sights of the Outpost from where he wheeled himself to balance. She then whipped her head back to her boss, “What ‘bout ‘em?”

“I’ll pay for him,”

The word ‘pay’ made BB-8 roll up to Rey’s left leg, squealing quiet pleas to not do what Plutt told her to. Her eyes did not look at him, staring down Plutt for the rest of his offer.

“Sixty portions.”

Her eyes widened, and she felt her stomach ache for the idea of even _one_ full portion, nevermind sixty. Her hand found itself gripping at the fabric covering her abdomen, and BB-8 knew that she was interested in such a tempting offer. He beeped at her, begging for his life and claiming that it was a bad idea. Rey looked between Plutt and the droid at her feet who bumped her ankle repeatedly. Finally, she made her decision, kneeling down to the droid and placing her hand on top of his head.

“Actually,” she answered slowly, the words dripping from her bottom lip as she stood up and faced Plutt again, “the droid’s not for sale. C’mon, BB-8.”

The droid squealed happily, following Rey towards her speeder as Plutt watched after them, furious of the failed transaction. He pulled a communicator up to his mouth, slamming closed his window at the Outpost.

“Get me that droid.”


	3. His Liberation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> may the fourth be with you! ♡

Poe wanted to say that he was asleep, but he knew better than to call it that. It was a break—a break from the torture and the pain that he’d been forced to endure for the entire time he’d been on the Star Destroyer since he was captured on Jakku. What day was it? Had it even been a full day? He didn’t know and, in all honesty, he didn’t know if he wanted to. But he knew better than to break his promise to the General. Anyone knew better than to do that.

His eyes were shut as he struggled to breathe before he saw the door of his cell open with a whoosh, revealing one of the many Stormtroopers he had the honor of meeting.

“Ren wants the prisoner.”

Poe held back a dissatisfied groan as the two other troopers in his cell undid the straps holding him to his seat. He wanted to feel the relief of being released, but before he could he was handcuffed and roughly grabbed by the new Stormtrooper, taken out to the winding corridors that went on for far too long for the young pilot’s liking.

He and the trooper walked for a long time in silence when the other finally spoke up, “Turn here,”

They entered a narrow passageway, and Poe was shoved against one of the nearby walls that kept the two of them out of sight. He winced from the pressure, unsure of what to expect and scared to open his eyes and face him.

“Listen to me carefully,” the Stormtrooper pushed his hand against the other’s chest as he spoke, punctuating his sentences, “you do as I say, we can both get the hell out of here,”

Poe opened his eyes, raising an eyebrow and trying to find the answers in the mask of the trooper with him, “I’m sorry?”

The Stormtrooper removed his mask, and Poe was stunned by and unsure of how to react to the gesture. Under his mask, his skin was a warm, reddish-brown, coated in a layer of sweat from his uniform. The captive looked into the man’s face, trying to find the truth to the unanswered questions, but the only thing that they revealed was how gorgeous the other man’s eyes were, a deep and endless brown.

“This is a _rescue_ ,” the Stormtrooper exaggerated the term ‘rescue’, lengthening it so that maybe Poe could understand the gravity of the situation, “I’m helping you _escape_. Can you fly a fighter?”

“I can fly anything. Why are you helping me?”

“Does that matter?”

“You with the Resistance or—?”

The Stormtrooper shook his head of the question, sputtering on his own words, “Wh— No, just, _listen_ , okay? I want to help you get out of this place—”

“Why? Why would _you_ help _me_?”

Poe watched the other’s face for a joke, trying to judge where the punchline was. There was no punchline.

“You need a pilot,” Poe said slowly, and for the first time in a while he smiled when the realization hit him that he was getting out of captivity on the Star Destroyer and be able to continue his mission.

“I need a pilot.”

“Alright, stay calm. Stay _calm_ ,”

“I am calm,”

“I was talking to myself.”

The Stormtrooper and Poe had made it to the Star Destroyer Hangar, his helmet back on and his captive with his head down to avoid suspicion. The two made it to the far wall where a special forces TIE fighter lay, waiting for the two men in their escape. Together, they made it into the cockpit, and Poe winced from the aches he didn’t realize he had as he took off his handcuffs and blood-splattered jacket. The Stormtrooper took off his helmet, discarding it in the pile that Poe left behind while the two of them fired up the ship. Poe smiled widely as the buttons clicked to life, flicking on the other switches as they prompted to be addressed.

“Flying one of these has always been my dream,” he took his eyes off the switches and buttons to face the man with him, “you can shoot, yeah?”

“Yeah, blasters,” the trooper rubbed his hands together, getting into his seat that was back-to-back with Poe. He looked at all the buttons, suddenly realizing just what he was about to control, “okay, this is very complicated,”

Poe nodded to himself, trying to find the explanation to make it all make sense to his escape partner, “It’s the same principle as a blaster! On your left there’s a toggle, use that to switch between missiles, canons, and mag pulse—use the site on the right to aim, triggers are to fire!”

The Stormtrooper muttered something to himself akin to ‘yeah, _just_ like a blaster’, but Poe didn’t quite hear him as he grabbed hold of the controls, the fighter lurching forward and swinging him and his escapee partner from the sudden force.

Watching over the hangar was the main control room with a large glass panel protecting the technicians and whoever else from the ongoings in the hangar. One of the many technicians spoke up from the mostly silent space, “Unsanctioned departure from bay two,”

“Alert General Hux,” the colonel’s voice barked at his subordinates, “and stop that fighter.”

From the window, he watched bay two and watched as the rogue TIE fighter rip itself from the charging cables. Unknown to the colonel or his company in the control room, the Stormtrooper and Poe were the ones in that fighter, and they were ready for a fight.

The Stormtrooper wiped the sweat from his brow as he aimed the unpacked megablasters on the fighter, shooting wildly at the other charging TIE fighters and gun emplacements. Poe didn’t say it, but he noticed how precise each shot was—the Stormtrooper made sure every shot counted, no misfires or mistakes. He made a quick move, and the large glass panel protecting the colonel and technicians from the chaos was shattered and the entire control room was engulfed in flames. The rogue Stormtrooper had to look away; he knew it was the right thing to do, but the fires only reminded him of Tuanul.

Poe kicked the fighter into gear, and soon they blasted out of the hangar, and he took the moment to breathe and whoop in excitement. They weren’t done with their fight, but they were out of the hangar, which was step one.

“ _Whoa_ girl,” he cooed at the machinery, trying to get used to the life of the TIE fighter, “this one really moves. Hey, we gotta take out as many canons as we can, yeah? I’ll get us in position, you keep doing great like you did in there,”

“Right!”

Poe whizzed past an opening between a part of the Star Destroyer, making it to the underbelly of the monster and aiming their fighter towards the canons.

“Hey, up ahead, you see it?” he asked, turning his head so his partner could better hear him, “clean shot, I got us dead centered,”

“Got it,” the trooper aimed and, like in the hangar, aimed with almost terrifying precision. The canons on the ship’s underbelly were engulfed in flames and through the debris, Poe weaved to escape.

The Stormtrooper clapped to himself, balling his hands to fists in excitement and whooping with Poe in excitement, “You see that? Did you _see_ that!”

“I saw it man,” Poe smiled, watching behind him as the fires only grew and the debris floated through the emptiness of space, “hey, you got a name?”

“FN-2187,”

Poe sputtered from the speed in which his partner said the numbers, “Eff-En-what?”

“Only name I’ve ever had,”

“Fuck that! Eff-En, right? I’ll call you Finn,” he looked back at him without seeing those beautiful eyes looking back at him, “that alright?”

Finn smiled to himself, whispering the name to himself and unable to fight back his smile, “Finn...yeah, Finn! I like that name! Finn!”

“Name’s Poe,” he felt weird only just introducing himself to the man who helped him escape from the Empire’s reincarnate, but it didn’t stop him, “Poe Dameron, I’m with the Resistance,”

“Nice to meet you, Poe Dameron!”

“Nice to meet you too, Finn!”

Within the Star Destroyer, on the main bridge that was the highway throughout the rest of the ship, one of the generals glided across the path under him with purpose and power matched only by the Supreme Leader. His hands were tight behind his back as he arrived behind one of the lieutenants, Mitaka, at the main console.

“General Hux,” Mitaka said, almost breathless in surprise, “they’ve taken out our turboblasters—”

The general interrupted his lieutenant’s concerns, “Use the ventral cannons,”

“Yes, sir, bringing them—”

The air of his presence came before his words, Kylo Ren’s looming shadow overtaking even the general’s as the latter sighed and repressed his eye roll, “General Hux,”

He turned, face with the massive man that was the Supreme Leader and forcing his lips into a line with his jaw clenched, “Supreme Leader,”

“Is it the Resistance pilot?”

“Yes, sir, but he had help,” General Hux motioned toward the console, “my sources say it was one of our own,”

He didn’t say anything, but Hux could feel Kylo Ren’s anger as it filled with like a volcano that threatened to overflow and scorch everything in its path across the Destroyer.

“We’re checking registers now to find which Stormtrooper—”

The Supreme Leader didn’t wait for the general to finish his thought before he spoke up, “FN-2187. The one from Tuanul,”

General Hux’s jaw clenched with unease—how would he know exactly who it was? He wrote it off to the leader’s Force abilities as he turned back toward the console and Kylo Ren marched away with as much authority as he had entered with.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Mitaka started his sentence, clicking at the console’s flashing buttons as they prompted themselves to him, “ventral cannons hot,”

“Fire.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Poe muttered to himself as he maneuvered skillfully through the cannons firing at their escape fighter, toward the sandy planet that he’d been captured from.

“You see that one coming towards us? On your left!”

“Got it!”

Finn was too busy taking care of the blasterfire that he didn’t notice the planet of Jakku as it came closer, “Where are you going?”

“Back to Jakku,”

Finn couldn’t find the words to explain his disbelief, “ _Excuse_ me? No! We can’t! We need to get the hell out of this system before these guys capture us!”

A missile shot past their fighter, but Poe avoided it as he continued his mission toward the sandy planet ahead, “My droid’s down there, I have to get to him before the First Order—”

“You’re going to risk our lives for a _droid_?!”

“He’s really important to me, man,” Poe tried to explain as he avoided more missiles from the Star Destroyer behind them, “and important to my mission,”

“Nothing is more important right now than staying _alive_ , Poe!”

“That droid has the map to Luke Skywalker,” Poe hissed, squeezing the controls in hopes their fighter would go faster, “there’s no way I’m just leaving him down there,”

Finn groaned, leaning his head back against his seat’s headrest, “You’ve _got_ to be kidding me—”

Suddenly, they were hit by one of the Star Destroyer’s blasterfires, the sirens of the fighter going off as Poe lost control and the two of them were rapidly gaining speed and spiraling toward the sandy surface of the planet of Jakku.


	4. Escape From Jakku

General Hux and Captain Phasma stood side by side on the Star Destroyer’s main bridge, a hologram of their rogue Stormtrooper turned target illuminating itself in blue-green lights and giving every bit of information on FN-2187 and his service records since birth.

“FN-2187 reported to my division,” Captain Phasma’s voice was hard, but even she knew this behavior was out of the ordinary for someone like him, “was evaluated and sent back to Reconditioning,”

“You said there were no prior signs of non-conformity?”

“This was his first, and only, offense.”

Not far from them, one of the Destroyer’s technicians turned away from the readings on her screen following the rogue TIE fighter to face her superiors, “General, they’ve been hit,”

Hux turned to look at the technician, walking swiftly in her direction to look at the readings himself, “Destroyed?”

She took a beat to read as more information typed itself onto her screen, “Disabled. Seems like they were going to go back to Jakku. Their projection it to crash in the Goazon badlands,”

General Hux watched the numbers on the technician’s screen, a little red light blinking in the location of FN-2187 and the pilot he escaped with. Under his breath, he whispered, “They were going back for the droid,”

“What’s our next move, General?”

“Send a squad to the wreckage.”

_Hot_.

That was what he felt first—he’d never been on Jakku during the day, but it was safe for him to say that the heat of the sun against his skin burned more than the fires during the attack on Tuanul. He opened his eyes, and he felt the aches in his joints when he moved to unbuckle himself from his ejected seat of the fighter.

Where _was_ the TIE fighter, anyway?

Finn scrambled to his feet, struggling to see beyond the hundreds, maybe thousands, of sand dunes that surrounded him, rising and covering the horizon in an unending, rolling landscape. Finally, in the distance, he saw it; where he and Poe would have landed, should their TIE fighter not have been hit by the enemy.

He also saw a thick, black smoke cloud rising from that same spot.

He started running before he could think, calling out Poe’s name desperately as his feet carried his exhausted body toward the wreckage and smoke and wanting so desperately for an answer. Finn knew better than to think that the pilot, _his_ pilot, was still in the fighter emitting the smoke that filled Finn’s lungs the closer her got; Poe may have been reckless, but he wasn’t stupid, and Finn knew he didn’t want to die. Not here, and not while his droid was still on Jakku with the map that the First Order was so fixated on finding.

He yelled out Poe’s name until his voice felt hoarse and his throat was even worse, but he was finally at the wreck. He jumped to a bit of the wreck that wasn’t entirely on fire, grabbing Poe’s partially scorched jacket and jumping away to avoid the fires that spread. The jacket was warm in his hands despite the gloves he wore from his uniform, and he held the jacket close to him as the wreckage settled further into the sand below it.

“Finn?”

Finn spun around as soon as he heard his name, and there he was. Still battered and beaten from both his torture on the Star Destroyer and from landing with not as much grace as either of them would have liked, Poe was standing there, face sleek with sweat and his eyes halfway hopeful that at least he had someone with him. They ran toward each other, colliding in a tight hug where the both of them held the other in a dead grip. Finn buried his face in the crook of Poe’s neck, the latter’s hand holding his head there so he could savor the moment. Finn didn’t realize how much he needed physical affection like this—he had been brainwashed, _traumatized_ , his entire life, born into a job that was so nonpersonal that he didn’t realize how good it felt to be hugged by someone who was happy he was even alive.

The two men pulled away for a moment, and stared at each other for half a second until they heard the crashed fighter behind them wheeze and groan. They looked at the ship, and then each other—it was _sinking_.

The two men both made a noise somewhere between ‘move’ and ‘shit’, scrambling to run as the sand softened under the wrecked fighter and, just as quickly as they had run from it, sunk under the desert’s surface. They looked at each other, wide eyed and holding to each other’s shirts with Finn’s hand still clinging Poe’s jacket close to his chest.

“Thanks for getting that,” Poe smiled as he started walking in a direction away from the sinking spot, stepping backward so he could talk at the same time, “ditch the Stormtrooper gear, it’s probably just making everything hotter, yeah?”

Finn was frozen for a moment before he finally reacted to Poe’s words, walking quickly to catch up with the pilot as he shed away the shell of the First Order’s puppet he had once been and becoming a fresh human being from what was left. He tried to give Poe his jacket, but the man refused.

“Keep it, take it as a gift of you getting me off that Destroyer,” Poe gave a half-smile, one that was entirely genuine and not something to make Finn feel like he was a worthless cog in a machine, and Finn put it over the both of them for shade.

“I’m assuming you know this place?”

“Well enough,” Poe pointed with his thumb back to where the ship had been, “where I landed back there, I saw my seat get under the sand real fast. Knew this place was the Sinking Fields, which I was warned about when I got my mission. Go in any direction around the Sinking Fields and you get to somewhere where there’s at least a person living there. Hopefully we can get directions to an outpost or something,”

“So you don’t know where we’re going?”

“Not a damn clue,” Poe laughed to make the air hanging between them less tense, and Finn laughed too, “but I know we’ll end up somewhere, which is better than dying in the middle of nowhere, right?”

“I guess so,” Finn looked out into the horizon, only seeing the rolling sand dunes for miles upon miles in front of them for a long, long time, “hey, Poe?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re here with me,”

Finn wasn’t looking at him, feeling dumb for the sentiment for a man that he didn’t know beyond random facts about him, but Poe gave him a pat on the back and rubbed his shoulder with a tenderness his partner in technical crime didn’t know existed.

“I’m glad you’re here with me, too.”

“Supreme Leader Snoke was explicit in his orders,”

The two men, strong and threatening, walked down the length of the bridge within the Star Destroyer. Their stances were different, but evoked a sense of power; neither man was taller than the other, and both wore uniforms of solid black that only made them seem bigger and stronger than they already were.

The one without the mask’s hands were held behind his back—they always were—and his steps made him look like he was floating, his shoulders back and his eyes hard and looking nowhere but the path ahead of him. The masked man took up more space than the other; his hands were in tight fists at his sides, his shoulders also back and his chest out but his head moving with every Stormtrooper that passed by him, watching them. No one could see his face, and he was glad they couldn’t; it was better that they didn’t know how hard he was looking into their faces, even if he wasn’t sure of what he was looking for.

“How capable are your soldiers, General?”

General Hux wanted to stop in his tracks, but he didn’t. He continued walking and turned his head slowly to his superior, mouth slightly agape and his eyes bitter as his words as they left his lips, “I will not have you question my methods,”

“Perhaps we should return to the times of the clones,” —General Hux swore he could hear the whining of a boy in the body of a grown, seasoned warrior— “maybe they wouldn’t be as skilled in high treason,”

“My men are _exceptionally_ trained, programmed from _birth_ —” he struggled to keep his thoughts straight, but Kylo only jumbled them again when he interrupted.

“Then they should have no problem retrieving the droid without destroying it, no?”

The two men stopped at General Hux’s control room—it wasn’t that he owned it, but he was the person in charge of the sector and wanted to _think_ that he owned it—and he finally turned to look Kylo Ren in the mask. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized how he was almost as tall as his superior, though not quite as wide.

“ _Careful_ , Ren,” he said, and his voice was low to not draw attention to their conversation that was slowly boiling over itself, “we both know your personal affairs should not interfere with Leader Snoke’s plans,”

Kylo was silent for a moment, and Hux would have smirked to himself had he not known the temper and the power of the warrior in front of him. The leader took a deep breath, his shoulders and chest moving slowly, and the general could swear his voice was going to shake.

“I want that map,” Kylo’s voice matched how low Hux’s had been, as to not draw attention to himself or the anger that slowly brewed in his voice, “and for your sake, I’d suggest you get it.”

The leader turned and made his way off in another direction, and the general watched him, jaw clenched and eyes wanting to set fire to the cape of Kylo Ren that flew behind him.

“What is it?”

“There, you see it?”

Poe pointed into the not-so-far distance, toward a bustling market of merchants, scavengers, and a group of tented stalls. Finn licked his lips—his mouth was so dry it almost hurt to talk, but he smiled and nodded at his partner. The other’s hand pat on his back, rubbing where he hit and smiling widely. Civilization was just a little ways away. They did it.

“It’s a good thing you saved my jacket, I should have some currency that can work here,” Poe smiled, Finn mirroring it, and together they made a dash toward the outpost ahead of them. They made a game of it, saying whoever was slower had to pay for a meal, too, but both of them knew they didn’t have the money for that. But water was cheap, especially somewhere like Jakku in the middle of the day, and when they arrived at one of the tents and its keeper, an alien trader with a leathery scrunched face and three squinting eyes of varying shades of green, the two of them clinked their flasks of water and drank like they hadn’t done so since they were children.

The men walked together through the Outpost’s marketplace, taking a moment to breathe and to enjoy themselves. They were safe—the First Order didn’t know where they were, or what they were doing. If anything, they probably thought they had sunk with the fighter, dead with whatever other lifeforms were unfortunate enough to stay out there.

Finn picked up a scarf, littered with patterns and colors, and turned to show it to Poe. He, however, wasn’t paying attention; in the distance, within the bustling tents and people, his eyes were fixated on something. Finn nudged him, setting down the scarf back into its place.

“What is it?”

“Over there,” Poe’s voice was low, and his eyes didn’t move from the spot in which he was staring, “you see her?”

Finn followed Poe’s sight, landing on a woman some feet away in a different tent looking at what seemed to be trinkets from another system. She was athletically slim, built with kindness and vigor, and the skin that showed between the wraps of her scavenger’s attire had been tanned gold by the sun. Her hair was chocolate in color, done in three small buns down the back of her head to keep it off her neck. Finn only saw her profile, but her face was small with sharp angles in her nose and jaw, eyes squinted from years in the desert and lips chapped from inadequate hydration.

“What about her?”

“Look at her feet,”

Finn did, immediately noticing what Poe had been looking at—a droid, up to the woman’s knee, rolling around on its spherical body as its head stayed stable, watching the woman as she looked at the goods that were being sold. Its body was white, with orange circles on the main sphere and orange detailing on its head. And then it hit him just as hard as the crash.

“Is that your droid?”

Poe nodded slowly, and Finn’s eyes went wide. He didn’t know this woman—she didn’t look like she worked with the First Order, but he knew they’d pay any amount of what she would have wanted to get their hands on that droid. Finn looked at Poe, and then back to the orange and white droid with the woman.

“Think she’ll hand it over if we ask nicely?”

“Depends on if she already gave up the map,” the two were walking now, away from the tents in fear of other people eavesdropping in on their conversation, “let’s hope she didn’t.”

The two men started their way quietly toward the woman and Poe’s droid, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as Poe’s eyes never left his droid and Finn’s eyes never left the woman, ready for any sudden attack. From the corner of the pilot’s eye, he noticed movement—big, burly alien men, ready for a fight and not afraid of getting their hands dirty. Finn’s heart skipped a beat when he realized that they weren’t coming for him or Poe.

They were heading for the droid.

“Poe,” Finn said sharply, and the other man snapped his head to his voice. The pilot’s eyes widened when he saw the thugs making their way closer, picking up speed towards his droid. Poe started running toward BB-8 and the woman, Finn chasing after him.

Rey looked up when she heard BB-8 beeping chaotically at her knee, rolling toward someone just out of her line of sight.

“Bee-”

She stopped, seeing a total of four men running for her and the droid.

“C’mon!”

One of the men, injured beyond a simple fight, motioned for her to follow him and his friend completely clad in black with a leather jacket. With the injured man was BB-8, rolling happily at his side and also whirring for Rey to join them. She made a glance toward the men that were coming from her left, and darted toward who she wanted to believe were her allies.

She caught up with the man wearing the leather jacket, matching his speed as they ran through Niima Outpost, knocking over merchandise and the occasional person as they tried to lose Plutt’s thugs after them.

“I know those are Plutt’s thugs,” Rey talked a little louder over the sounds of aliens and humans yelling as she and the other three stumbled past them to get away from their captors, “but who the hell are _you_ two?”

“No time,” Finn said hurriedly, looking back at the thugs still hot on their tail, “we gotta—”

A familiar rumble shook the outpost, and Poe stumbled and rolled over a table of fabrics and clothes as he and the other three kept running out into the brutal heat of the desert. All of them, including BB-8, looked up—and were met with a jet black squadron of First Order TIE fighters just about to land with a squad of Stormtroopers.

“Shit, shit, shit, _shit_ ,” Poe hissed under his breath, himself and the others skidding to a stop. He looked quickly for a getaway, but Rey was faster than him thanks to her familiarity with the Outpost.

“C’mon!” she said, and she was the first to start running, followed by the other three she’d become grouped with. The adrenaline running through her veins and her thumping heart kept her going toward one of the newer ships, nicer and likely had just landed with its owner in Niima somewhere. _Unfortunate for them_ , she thought.

“Hey, what about that one?” Finn called out to her, and the woman whipped her head to follow his finger. A light freighter, gray but becoming bleached by the Jakkuian sun. The ship was old and croaking, on the verge of death just from Rey’s eyes landing on it.

“That one’s garbage!” she called back, but was immediately stopped when blasterfire started and the ship they’d been running toward was obliterated in a gust of fire and dust. The three all stopped, BB-8 beeping madly as Rey looked back at the freighter Finn had suggested.

“The garbage’ll do!”

The four all darted toward the older ship, Finn being the first in as he helped the other two and BB-8 in, Rey immediately shaking off his hand as she got onto the ship. The three rushed toward the cockpit, Finn rushing to find the blaster. 

“You ever flown something like this before?” Poe asked quickly as he and Rey tried to jumpstart the old freighter back to life, the sound of First Order blasterfire barely missing the ship. The lights and buttons buzzed to life, and the pilot smiled to himself as he grabbed control of the handles.

“No, but I do speeders,” Rey turned on the buttons on her side, matching Poe in his handling of the freighter. He rolled his lips together, trying to kick the ship into gear to escape the First Order quite literally right behind them. The squadron shot rapidly at their getaway ship, but only made a couple hits into the freighter's sides.

“Same rules, just follow my lead,” he said, and finally got the freighter untucked within the depths of the sand it’d been hidden in for who knew how long. Together, Poe and Rey got the ship to fly out and away from the tarps that covered it, blasting off into the distance from Niima. Two TIE fighters from the First Order’s squadron screamed by, catching up behind the escaping freighter almost as quickly as they could get away.

“Hey, stay low!” Finn called, struggling with the controls to the arsenal attached to the freighter.

“What?”

“ _Stay low_! It confuses their tracking! Didn’t you say you were a great pilot?!”

Rey looked at Poe, who just rolled his eyes from Finn’s comment, causing Rey to stifle a laugh with a smile. She followed Poe’s movements, and they were close to the ground, the desert sand picking up and flying behind them. She heard the screaming of the fighters fly overhead, the enemy just missing them. Whoever Finn was, he was right.

Poe motioned his head towards Rey’s side, tilting his chin towards one of the buttons, “Hey, hit that button there, would you?”

Rey looked at Poe and nodded quietly, slamming her hand on one of the many buttons on her side of the control panel in front of them. Poe yelled back to his partner, BB-8 beeping behind him in fear.

“Shields are up if you wanna get to shooting, Finn!”

“Got it!”

The first blastershot from the freighter hit right on target, one of the black TIE fighters falling from the sky in a glorious ball of fire. However, the second shot missed; the still-able TIE fighter arched backward, flipping and evening itself out in hot pursuit of the freighter, screaming as it flew toward them.

“ _Shit_ ,” Finn cussed to himself, then called back to the cockpit, “we need cover, quick!”

“On it!”

Poe made a hard left, hard enough to make BB-8’s magnetic cables grip the wall for balance and making Rey almost fall out of her seat, only saved because of her grip on the yoke and the belts strapping her down into her seat.

“ _Hey_!” she hissed, and Poe only laughed at her scrunched face, making a sharp turn within a rock formation and dangerously close to the wall.

“Listen, if you wanna outrun the First Order, you gotta get used to the unexpected,”

“Finn!” Rey called back to the man in the turret, “you _ever_ gonna start shooting again?”

“I’m _workin’_ on it!” he called back, and his eyes focused on the TIE fighter close behind their ship. He missed a couple shots, a dangerous amount in the opinion of most, but the First Order ship didn’t miss. With a single shot from the enemy, hitting directly at the lower turret and spinning it to face forward. Another scream passed by—another fighter to join its lone friend.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Finn muttered under his breath, the turret filled with loud sirens and bright flashing red lights, “Poe! Desert lady! Canon’s stuck forward, I can’t move it! You gotta lose ‘em!”

Rey looked at Poe—he saw it in her eyes, even if the adrenaline running through her veins were too much. She was confused and she was _scared_ ; he and Finn got her tied up in this mess that wasn’t hers, and if they didn’t act quickly, she wasn’t going to make it out alive, either. The pilot scanned the area; they were in a ship graveyard, long-dead Destroyers, TIE fighters, and freighters strewn about the landscape. Then something clicked.

“Get ready, buddy!”

“Okay!” Finn paused, and then looked back toward the cockpit, concerned, “get ready for _what_?”

Poe pushed forward the yoke in his hands, his eyes hard on the target that was unknown to Rey. She looked between him and where they were going.

One of the Super Star Destroyers.

“What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?!” Rey held to the control panel, looking at Poe with wide eyes. He didn’t answer, only picking up speed as the screams of the TIE fighters behind them got closer and closer.

“Are you trying to—”

Before Rey could finish her question, Poe yanked on the yoke; just before meeting with the wall of the fallen Destroyer, the freighter went up its side, turning completely upside down and allowing the canons to face toward the enemy.

“ _Now_ , Finn!”

The ex-Stormtrooper reacted quickly, shooting down one of the TIE fighters that, in its own mayhem, ran into its twin. Both fell to the surface in a ball of smoke and debris, finally ending the chase. Finn whooped, and Rey laughed and clapped her hands. Poe sighed in lucky relief—he wasn’t sure exactly how he was going to pull that off for a moment.

Gunning the engine again, the pilot and his co-pilot flipped the freighter back over, zipping out of the graveyard and disappearing into the clouds, safe from the First Order’s pursuit.


	5. The Millennium Falcon

Kylo Ren watched out the window on the Star Destroyer’s bridge quietly, his hands behind his back and his body seemingly unmoving. He felt a presence beside him — Lieutenant Mitaka, he noted. The latter swallowed, and the Supreme Leader felt his nervousness.

“Sir,” Mitaka said slowly, knowing that this news was not going to be easy on his leader to hear, “we were unable to secure the droid on Jakku,”

Kylo did not speak, only slightly turning to see the lieutenant over his shoulder. Mitaka swallowed, but it landed in a lump in the pit of his stomach.

“It escaped aboard a stolen Corellian YT model freighter,”

“The droid,” Kylo turned slowly, the entirety of his front soon facing Mitaka, “ _stole_ a freighter?”

“No, sir, not exactly. It had help,”

Kylo was silent, and Mitaka knew the rage was building slowly within his Supreme Leader. Mitaka felt the sweat on his brow, and he knew any moment that the other man would pull out his lightsaber and start hacking at anything in his path—if the lieutenant was part of that, then so be it.

“We believe that Poe Dameron and FN-2187 may have helped it—”

Just as he had feared, Kylo Ren reached for his lightsaber and hacked away at the control panel behind him in a blind rage. Mitaka winced and looked away, stiff with fear. He knew that hearing not only had the droid run away, but so did Kylo’s two _other_ wanted targets, was going to make him unbelievably angry. He was only grateful that he was not being sliced in half at the Supreme Leader’s rage.

The noises of destruction soon stopped, and the metallic wall behind Kylo sizzled with red lightsaber streaks ripped across its surface. The leader stood there, stoic and silent, as if nothing happened.

“Anything else?”

Another lump formed in the lieutenant’s throat, but he forced himself to speak, “They were accompanied by a girl,”

Kylo’s gloved hand extended toward Mitaka, and before he could react the lieutenant was violently pulled toward Kylo, his hand perfectly fitting around Mitaka’s throat as the leader’s mask leaned in and hissed, “What _girl_?”

  
  
  


Poe and Rey quickly unbuckled themselves from their seats, and upon standing, hugged each other tightly. Poe didn’t realize how much bigger he was than the woman he was holding, her form small and completely enveloped in his. They pulled from each other, running out and meeting with Finn, who was jumping and grabbed the both of them in a tight hug, thankful they were, once again, alive and out of the hands of the Order.

After pulling away from the group hug, Rey looked between the two men with her. It wasn’t until then that she realized she did not actually know them.

“Poe,” she said slowly, drawing out the syllable and pointing a finger at the pilot she’d just been the co-pilot to. He nodded, giving her a small salute and a bright smile.

“And Finn,” she said, pointing to the other who had been manning the cannons during the chase. He, too, gave her a smile, Poe looking at him and watching the muscles in his face.

“And you are?”

She stopped. No one _ever_ wanted to know her name. No one was ever that interested in her existence. She had to find the name she’d always known as, the name that buried itself in her heart with someone familiar saying it but the desert girl never knowing who.

“Rey,” she said, and the corners of her lips twitched up with a smile, “I’m Rey.”

BB-8 rolled up between the three excitedly, beeping to his master and to Rey. She looked between the two of them, eyes wide with realization.

“Wait, _you’re_ BB-8’s master?” a bemused look crossed Rey’s face, and Poe smiled as he kneeled down to meet with his spherical droid friend.

“That’s me,” he said, rubbing BB-8’s body while the robot cooed in content. Poe whispered something to the droid, and he popped open his multi-reader. The pilot sighed in relief, and Rey tried to look at what was there with no avail.

“Does he have something important?”

“You...don’t know?” Finn asked, and he looked at Poe as he got up. Poe was just as confused.

“Don’t know what? All I know is you two’s names and that I just helped co-pilot a freighter to escape the First Order on Jakku—” her eyes went wide with realization, and she ran to a window in the freighter’s lounge area. Poe and Finn followed her, and BB-8 rolled up to her ankle, bumping it as she looked out into space back at the sandy planet she left.

“I have to get back,”

“Back where?” Poe asked as Rey brushed past him and Finn. The two men looked at each other, confused. She didn’t want to go back to a place like Jakku, did she?

“I have to get back to Jakku,”

“Back to Jak—” Finn sputtered, speeding after the girl and stopping her in her tracks by standing in her way, “what is up with you and Poe wanting to go back to Jakku? Don’t you know how _dangerous_ that place is? Especially now!”

“You don’t know me, _Finn_ ,” his name left her tongue like a dagger left its sheath, and she shoved past him and turned to face him and his partner, who looked worried about what was going on, “what’s so important about BB-8 that the literal First Order is after you three?”

“BB didn’t tell you?” Poe echoed Finn's previous question, but this time the spherical droid at his feet beeped in response. Classified information; he _couldn’t_ tell her. It was against his code.

“You know about the Jedi, right?” Poe said slowly, and the three of them sat together in the longue, Rey watching the droid roll around excitedly in the new surroundings that weren’t going upside down at high speeds.

“And Luke Skywalker?”

“ _Luke Skywalker_?” Rey repeated and scoffed at the name, brushing it off and shaking her head, “isn’t he a myth?”

“Kind of hard to say that,” Poe shrugged, cooing for his droid to come back to him, “because his twin sister is the general of the Resistance,”

Rey watched BB-8’s multi-reader open up again, and the pilot pulled out a metal object with jagged sides. A map.

 _The_ map, actually. The one to Luke Skywalker.

Rey went to touch it, but Poe put it back into the multi-reader, BB-8 beeping and rolling off to explore the freighter more extensively. Finn looked at the two of them, and then said something softly.

“They aren’t _just_ after the map,”

Rey turned to him, and Poe’s eyes widened slightly, full of worry. Rey didn’t know what Finn was about to say, but he did — and he didn’t know how the woman with them would react to it.

“They’re after me, too,” he explained slowly, “I left my armor back in the Sinking Fields, but I’m a Stormtrooper. Well, ex-Stormtrooper, I guess, if you can call it that—”

“Ex-Stormtrooper?” Rey repeated, and Finn laughed at it.

“Well when _you_ say it, it sounds ridiculous,” he rubbed his hands together, his elbows against his knees as he continued, “but yeah, I was a Stormtrooper. Taken from a family I’ll never remember and trained to be an emotionless war machine, the whole sob story you’d expect. Follow orders, don’t ask questions, back straight, face straight, don’t look at the dead bodies as you mow ‘em down, all that. But on my first mission, I froze. Watched someone die, one of my own, and I couldn’t do it. And I got out with Poe—and now, with you, too, Rey,”

Rey and Poe listened to the tale silently, and Rey parted her lips to say something. Suddenly, the lights in the freighter shut off, and the three all hurried to the cockpit. Something was wrong, and they weren’t sure what.

Poe hopped into one of the seats, Finn and Rey following suit and BB-8 beeping at them while the pilot looked over the dead instrumentation panel.

“It’s all overrun,” he stated, fingers running over the buttons and knobs to no avail, “someone’s locked onto us,”

“The First Order?”

A large shadow covered the freighter slowly, enveloping it slowly and enclosing the three of them in darkness. Finn peered out the window, only to sit down in a seat with wide eyes full of fear.

“It’s the First Order, it _has_ to be,” he responded, horrified, “only they have stuff that’s big enough to hold one of these things in, and that out there has us like a cave to a frog-dog,”

“What do we do?”

Poe and Finn looked at each other, and suddenly a light went off. They both look at the scavenger girl with them.

“Rey,” Poe said, and he leaned over and the three of them bumped heads, “you’re a scavenger, you break ships all the time. Think you can break this one?”

Her eyebrow raised itself in confusion, “Break it _how_?”

“The motivator,” Poe got out of his seat, Finn and Rey following quickly after him to one of the grates in the floor, “it’s part of the ship that helps keep poisonous gas out from the inside,”

“Don’t Stormtroopers have masks?”

“The masks filter out _smoke_ ,” Finn added, and the three yanked up the grate that covered part of the freighter that led to what they needed, “not toxins.”

The two men helped Rey jump into the grating safely, Poe rushing off to find gas masks for the three of them. All the while, BB-8 beeped at Rey, giving her instructions on what to pull. Soon enough, the grating filled with smoke and Poe was back with the gas masks. He threw one down to Rey, he and Finn putting theirs on and jumping into the hole. All three used what muscles they could to hoist down BB-8, who weighed more than any of them were expecting when he rolled into their open hands.

Finn, as tall as he was, pulled the grating over top of the four of them, and they all heard the sound of the freighter’s ramp lowering to allow whoever caught them in. They all took the second to breathe, BB-8 in between his three human companions.

They couldn’t see who had walked in, but their footsteps were slow. They waited for more, but there weren’t any — two people stepped on top of the grate above them. Rey looked up; an older man stood on the grate, clad in smuggling gear and his hair salty and his blaster held in his hand ready for combat. Beside him was something non-human — Rey had never seen anything like him before, fuzzy with layers of dark brown fur and at least six feet tall. Across his chest was a bandolier, and in his hands was a blaster, larger than the older man’s, as the two of them looked around the ship. A wave of nostalgia hit the humanoid and the man.

“Chewie,” the old man said, and even without being able to see his face, Rey could feel the happiness radiating from him, “we’re home.”


	6. The Truth of Myths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after a long break for my mental health (and for midterms/finals), i'm back! i hope this chapter makes up for missing about 3 months of uploading — i'm pretty proud of it myself! ♡

The old man looked at his fuzzy comrade, the two of them heading in opposite directions to scour the ship of intruders. The three in the grate looked at each other, and Poe’s eyes were wide, aware of something his runaway friends weren’t.

“Finn, can you reach the grate?”

“So you can go up there? No way—”

“Finn,” Poe said his name again, and his hands rested on Finn’s shoulders to calm him down. It worked, “trust me.”

Finn looked at his partner, and nodded slowly as he moved to open the grate. It made a slow creak, and the old man pointed his blaster down to the three and BB-8 in the hole.

“ _Poe Dameron_?” the man’s eyebrow cocked up, confused, but his eyes showed a glint of familiarity. Poe saluted up at him from inside the grate.

“Han Solo!”

Rey and Finn looked at each other as Poe jumped out of the ship, greeting the old man with a handshake and smiling. The fuzzy humanoid—Chewie, Finn and Rey supposed—walked over and squeezed the pilot into a hug, Poe laughing and patting his arm.

“What are you three still doing down there?” Han said, and he held an arm out to Rey as Poe and Chewie helped Finn and BB-8 out. Rey took his hand, and with his help, climbed out to the rest of the freighter. The old man smiled at her, but something about the way his eyes scrunched and wrinkles made Rey’s heart thump a little harder against her chest. She wasn’t sure why.

“Finn, Rey,” Poe smiled, and he motioned to the old man and his friend, “this is Han Solo and Chewbacca. He’s a Wookiee, if you couldn’t tell. These two used to show up to drop off supplies with the Resistance,”

The old man smiled at his title, and then realized the gas masks.

“You three tear out the motivator?”

“We thought you were the First Order,” Rey admitted, and she went to jump into the grate again, only to be stopped by Han’s hand grasping her shoulder in a strong, unmoving grip. She looked at him, and he saw her, _truly_ saw her, and his eyes glinted, though Rey still couldn’t quite figure out why.

“The First Order after Poe Dameron? Tell me something that’s a surprise next time,” the old man smirked at the pilot, who held his hands up in surrender and his face smug. Chewbacca jumped into the grate, pulling out tools from his bandolier and getting to work.

“I can—”

“ _Chewie_ can fix it,” Han said, and he made his way toward the cockpit, “while the three of _you_ explain to me exactly what’s going on here,”

The smuggler walked through the ship, looking around and taking in the sights. He was home, truly home, and for the first time in a long time, he felt happy.

“Where’d you three get this ship?”

“Jakku,” Poe said, meeting with Han as they, Finn, and Rey came to a stop. BB-8 hung back with Chewbacca, beeping at him and being met with the Wookiee’s moan-talking in response.

“Jakku? _That_ junkyard?” Han’s face twisted into a look of disgust.

“Thank you!” Finn looked at Rey, who glared at him. Under his breath, he repeated the older man, “Junkyard,”

Han turned to Chewbacca in the grate, “Told ya we shoulda double-checked the Western Reaches!”

The man made his way down one of the corridors of the freighter, “Who had it? Ducain?”

“We stole it from Unkar Plutt,” Rey used her fingers to keep track as she scrunched her face up, thinking back to what she knew of the ship from it’s time on Jakku, “he stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain,”

“Who stole it from _me_ ! When you get back to Jakku, you tell him that Han Solo took it back for _good_ ,” Han pointed to himself, marching toward the cockpit and sitting in the pilot’s seat. He knew it wasn’t going to fly anywhere, not while he was in the hangar of his new ship, but he just wanted to sit there for the first time in _many_ years.

Beside him plopped Rey, who was burning with questions where the answers didn’t quite make sense, “This is really the Millennium Falcon? And you...you’re _really_ Han Solo?”

“I used to be,” the old man’s hand reached for something above his head and narrowed his eyes, “hey! What moof-milker put a compressor in the ignition line?!”

Han stood from his seat in the cockpit angrily, holding the object in his hand as he marched from the cockpit. Rey followed after him quickly, the gears turning in her head as she continued his sentence for him.

“Unkar Plutt did it. I thought it was a mistake too, the thing puts too much stress on the hyperdrive—”

“—stress on the hyperdrive,”

Han and Rey finished their sentences at the same time, and for a second Rey saw that glimmer again. She only smiled when her heart filled with something she didn’t recognize. What was it about him that was so warm, so familiar? So much like a home she never had?

Han shook his head, “So where are you three going?”

Rey looked to the boys for help, but only Poe seemed to know the answer.

“The Ileenium system,” he stood between Han and Rey, the older man nodding slowly and turning to walk down one of the Falcon’s corridors, “that’s where my mission is supposed to be finished,”

“Then we should fix up and get going,” Han called over his shoulder. He disappeared behind a corner of the wall before poking his head back out, confused why the three younger travellers weren’t following behind him.

“Well? You expectin’ an old man like me to fix it by myself? Get over here.”

  
  


“If Luke Skywalker returns, the new Jedi will rise. I pray the both of you know this.”

The room was silent, almost deafening to the general and the Supreme Leader. Well, they all knew the man with the mask and the dark cloak, now kneeling before his superior who had spoken, wasn’t the _true_ Supreme Leader—it was only a title gifted to him because he was above the generals he ordered. The true Supreme leader was the holographic form of an old, war-beaten behemoth of a not-quite-human figure with a booming voice, eyes just as stony grey as the rest of his body.

“He is the last Jedi, and if the droid arrives to the Resistance with the map, our years of planning will have been ruined,”

“Supreme Leader, if I may—”

“General Hux,” the being’s head moved, and the redhead’s jaw clenched from fear in the corner of his comrade’s eye, “our strategy must change,”

“And it will. The weapon,” Hux took a breath, trying his best to keep the air from shaking on its way out between his lips, “it is ready. I believe the time has come to use it, has it not? A single strike from the weapon and we will destroy the Republic. Once they’re gone, the Resistance will be vulnerable and without incoming supplies or reinforcements, we will stop them before they can reach Skywalker.”

The true Leader went silent for a moment, mulling over the thoughts his general had arisen in his mind. Hux held his breath as the giant man spoke again, his voice still booming despite his attempt to whisper.

“Oversee preparations. You are dismissed,”

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

Hux took a slow bow, turning on his heel and marching with purpose out of the room. To Kylo Ren, who stood as the sound of the general’s boots faded out of existence, it sounded like Hux was trying to move as quickly as possible without causing a scene. And, in all honesty, Kylo would have, too, if he were as fearful as the general was.

He moved his hands to the mask on his face, releasing his hair and letting it fall in small, dark waves as he held the object between his side and elbow, staring his superior in the face. There were few allowed to see his face, but his superior made it a rule for Kylo to never wear his mask in front of him. A sign of respect, or something of the like.

“You felt it, haven’t you? Those who hibernated have finally been awakened,”

“I have,” Kylo’s voice was low and bitter, and the taste of the words in his mouth made him sick.

“And there is still more,” the true Leader tapped a large finger against the arm of his throne. Kylo glanced at it and hoped it’d stop, though he knew better than to think it would, “the droid is aboard the Millennium Falcon with your father, Han Solo.”

 _Han Solo_. The words rang in Kylo’s ears painfully, his heart banging against his ribcage to the syllables of his father's. Though he felt the surprise under his skin, he wouldn’t let his face show it; that’s what his superior would have wanted, any sort of proof or a sense of weakness for a side he no longer fought for. The young man refused to give that to him; he would always refuse to give the true Leader the satisfaction of knowing how his mind worked.

“He means nothing to me,”

“Not even a master of the Knights of Ren like yourself has faced such a test,” his superior’s lips curved to an ugly smile, and though he knew it was to be intimidating, Kylo subconsciously counted how many teeth he had left.

With a tight jaw and a steely gaze, Kylo Ren raised his chin to his superior in a sort of honor to the giant, “By the grace of your training, Supreme Leader Snoke, I will not be seduced,”

“We will see, Kylo Ren,” Snoke moved his hand slowly, waving off the younger Supreme Leader, “we will see.”

Kylo Ren nodded to his superior, placing his mask back where it sat comfortably and marching out with his back straight and arms at his sides. He heard the ashes of the hologram fall to the floor of the assembly room, leaving it in darkness as the door slammed shut behind him.

  
  
  


Sparks flew beside Han and he smiled, clasping a hand against Rey’s shoulder.

“Good job, kid, where’d you learn to be so handy?”

“Scavenging on Jakku,” she said shortly, her eyes fixated on an array of wires and lights she poked at with her tools, “I do this sort of stuff every day,”

Han nodded, and then sighed, “Dameron, Finn, you two listenin’? Maybe you can learn a thing or two from her!”

“Hey, I can fix a ship!” Poe called from down the ways, he and Finn swapping tools as they struggled with fixing the wires in another opening in the Falcon.

“Yeah, after _you_ break it,” Finn kicked his partner, and the three men all laughed while Rey closed the panel she’d been working on with a hardy _slam_ to keep it shut.

“Tell me about Luke Skywalker,” her eyes were bright with youthful joy as she spun around and looked at Han, placing her tools back into a small toolkit he had found earlier, “about General Leia, about _you_. I’ve only ever heard legends, myths about you three and how you—”

“Slow down, Rey,” Poe said, kicking closed the panel and standing with the help of Finn as they finished their work on their panel, “Han’s old, he can’t hear you if you talk too fast,”

“Watch yourself, Dameron,” Han jammed a finger into the other man’s chest jokingly, smiling the smug smile that Rey only knew from stories, “you’re lucky I like you enough,”

“And ‘enough’ is good enough for me,” Poe pushed the older man’s hand away, turning back to Rey with a cocky smile, “but what did you wanna know, Rey? I’ll yell it at him for you,”

Rey smiled between all three men and Chewie who joined the conversation, Han punching Poe in the arm and Finn clapping a hand against the pilot’s back. For the first time in Rey’s memory, she was having a genuine conversation where she could ask questions without someone punishing her for it, “Well, did you know them? Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, I mean, you knew them, right?”

“ _Know_ them?” Han scoffed, starting to head down the hallway with his Wookiee companion at his side. The younger group of fugitives looked at each other and then followed, excited for the story, “they were everything for me. Got me a best friend and a wife,”

“A wife?”

“Leia,” Poe interjected, smiling at the knowledge, “I swear I told you he dropped off supplies for the Resistance, which his _wife_ is the _General_ of,”

“Given it’s...been a while since I saw her last,” Han turned around, carefully walking backward so he could face the younger generation behind him, “we had a little incident and I needed some time. Well, a lot of time—”

“Yeah, thirteen _years_ ,”

“Dameron, one more comment from you and I’m feeding you to the Rathtars,”

“Wait, wait, _wait_ ,” Finn waved his hands in front of his face, bewildered from the word that just left Han’s mouth so casually, “ _Rathtars_ ? You’re smuggling _Rathtars_?”

“Do I look like a man who smuggles Porgs?” Han raised an eyebrow, and Finn thought for a second before he shook his head.

“What’s a Rathtar?” Rey looked between the other three, who all raised their eyebrows at each other in response.

“You know about the Trillia Massacre?” Finn’s face was twisted into one of horror that someone didn’t know about Rathtars, but he couldn’t expect much from a girl who’d seemingly been sheltered her entire life on a planet far from anywhere or any _one_ else.

“No?”

“ _Good_ ,”

“Well, I’d love to show you kids,” Han stretched his arms as he turned back around, “but we really should get going. Say, who’d like to have some flying lessons from good ol’ Han Solo himself?”

Rey and Poe both spoke up at the same time, then glanced at each other and smirked as they raced each other to the pilot seat in Han’s newer ship. The old man smiled to himself, then looked to his side as Finn joined him, a smile thoughtlessly on his face.

“Those two are going to be the Luke and Leia you need just like I did, kid,” Han’s hand pat Finn hard on the back, and the young man looked to the older one with admiration, “you best not let them go.”


	7. Takodana

“Easy, Poe, she’s a bit bigger than what you’re used to with the Falcon,”

Han patted the young man on the shoulder as he flew through the freighter through space, his eyes watching for anything that could be out the window—enemy ships, asteroids, a dead body if they were _that_ unlucky.

“That’s it,” the old man leaned back, turning and motioning for Finn, Chewbacca, and BB-8 to come closer, “now, if you three could explain exactly what’s going on and let a man like myself in on such a secret as to why a ragtag group with exactly _one_ person I know were running from the First Order and what our next plan of action is, I’d appreciate it,”

“I was on a mission to go to Tuanul, back on Jakku,” Poe explained, he and Rey turning in their pilot seats to join the conversation, “San Tekka had the map to Luke Skywalker, and it was my mission to get it and bring it back so Leia could finally find him after so long,”

“But the First Order’s also after it,” Finn continued, his arms crossed as he went through the vague memory of the story in his head, “wanting to kill the man who killed Darth Vader, I’d assume. They found out San Tekka had it, and we got there just as Poe was about to leave,”

“ _We_?” Han raised an eyebrow to Finn, who was suddenly flustered and at a loss for words.

“It’s not the Clone Wars anymore,” Poe explained quickly, trying to diffuse the situation, “the First Order takes babies from birth and trained them to be cold killers. But not Finn. He figured it out. He’s the one who saved me and BB-8 in the end, really. Without him, I wouldn’t be here and who knows where BB-8 would be,”

The little droid whirred affectionately as he rolled to Rey, who was the next to speak, “He and I would still be on Jakku. I assume before you were captured, you told him to go running, and he did, and I saved him from being sold for portions. Then you two came running at me, as did some of Unkar Plutt’s thugs and a company of First Order TIE fighters, so I got wrapped up in this too because of _you_ , Poe Dameron,”

Poe smiled and leaned over, pinching Rey in the arm playfully as she smacked his hand away, “Oh, you like me at least a little bit,”

“Not a chance!”

“Well, I’d guess he still has the map,” Han nodded to Rey, “you don’t look like the type of girl to sell off something you don’t think is even real,”

“He wouldn’t even open his multi-reader,” Rey patted the droid’s head as he beeped between Han and Poe, “said it was classified and that he wasn’t allowed to show me anything. Doubt he’d do it for anyone else, either,”

“That’s optimistic of you to think the First Order would ask a droid nicely to see the map of the location to their one greatest enemy and the best Jedi of his time,” Han sneered, and Rey glared at him, though her heart jumped that someone was actually trying to joke around with her.

“Let me have at least a _little_ hope, okay?”

The old man just looked at BB-8, “So can he show it?”

Poe whistled for BB-8, the droid rolling to him while beeping excitedly. Poe nodded, standing from his seat, “He can, but he says we should do it in the lounge. Just a little too small in here for all of us to see it like we should.”

  
  
  
  


BB-8 rolled himself to the center of the lounge area, looking to Poe before he projected a blue, holographic map. It was huge, taking up the entire lounge, floor-to-ceiling and glittering with stars and planets across multiple systems.

“This isn’t the full thing, of course,” Poe motioned to parts of different systems that were cut off or missing names, “but it’s what Leia and the First Order both need to find Luke,”

“Why’d he disappear?” Rey walked through the map, wide eyes shining with stars, “he couldn’t have just...not want to be a Jedi anymore, right?”

“Luke always wanted to be a Jedi,” Han stepped into the conversation, looking at the familiar names of planets and stars around him, “and he wanted to recreate the whole Order, too. Be their teacher, stuff like that. There was a boy, a promising student that Luke had high hopes for, who turned to the dark side. Ran away without a word. After that...Luke vanished, and no one knows where,”

“What about you?” Finn chimed in, and the old man turned to him, “you said he was your best friend, right? Did he tell you?”

“If he told me I wouldn’t be just standing here with you three talking about it,” Han scoffed and looked back to the map’s stars and planets, counting them and wishing one of them could tell them where Luke was, “but there were rumors. Stories. Leia told me once about a Jedi temple, and how he may have gone there,”

“I still can’t believe the Jedi were real,” Rey took a deep breath, trying to take in all this new information that was wracking her brain.

“You and me both, kid,” Han patted her back and pulled her into a half-hug to his side, “magical powers holding together good and evil? A physical manifestation of light and dark? Bunch of mumbo jumbo if you ask me,”

Han looked to Rey, Finn, and Poe with soft eyes, then finally to the map again.

“But the craziest thing is that it’s all true. The Force, the Jedi, everything. All of it. It’s all _true_ ,”

“Hey, Han,” Poe spoke up after a moment of silence between the lot of them, “this reminiscing about the good ol’ days is nice and all, but shouldn’t we get going to get back to the Resistance?”

“And risk all of us and the droid with the map getting intercepted in the middle of travelling? Nah,” Han let go of Rey, who missed his warmth as he walked to the cockpit of the ship again, “you want my help? You got it. But we’re not risking our skins without a little help from an old friend.”

  
  
  


Han sat silently in the pilot seat, Poe beside him as his co-pilot. Rey and Finn sat together with BB-8 between the both of them. Through the windshield of the ship, a burst of colors Rey had never seen before in her life came—flora and fauna of all kinds, green and alive and _beautiful_.

Under her breath, she spoke to herself and expected no one else to hear, “I didn’t know there was so much green in the galaxy.”

Han glanced over his shoulder to the girl, his eyes soft. He and Poe made eye contact with each other, sharing a mutual smile as they finally crested over a seemingly endless green forest to find a large, old castle, vines interweaving with the stones and a lake sparkling beyond.

The ship landed slowly amongst other smaller, worn freighters with beings of various races and ages milling in and out of the castle that would serve as their home.

Rey was the first off the ship, instantly walking out into the fresh air with no sand in sight beyond the lake’s bank. BB-8 whirred beside her, beeping and bumping her leg. Still on the ship, Han blocked Finn and Poe before they could leave.

“This is especially important for _you_ , ex-Stormtrooper,” he leaned over and poked a finger into Finn’s chest as the young man raised an eyebrow, “before you panic, First Order sympathizers don’t exist around here. Most don’t know this place exists, and even if they do they get laughed out before they can even land,”

Poe nudged Finn, who finally smiled as Han finished. The older man stood up straight, crossing his arms, “And most importantly, you two better not leave that girl’s side. If you want to win this war you’ve got going on, she’s the key you need. Got it?”

“And how do you know that?” Finn raised his chin, and Poe mimicked him. The two men crossed their arms, leaning so their shoulders rested against each other’s.

Han looked out one of the windows outside, catching a glance of Rey as she and BB-8 walked slowly through the new area and took in their surroundings. His heart ached, but he wouldn’t let Finn or Poe know it.

“Just...take my word for it,” he said before heading off the ship, not tossing anything else over his shoulder as he went to meet with the girl. Finn and Poe looked at each other, equally confused, before they walked out with their arms draped around each other’s shoulders like old friends.

  
  
  


“Take this,”

Rey jumped at the voice, relaxing when she recognized Han. She looked to his hand; he was trying to hand her a blaster.

“You might need it,”

“I think I can handle myself,”

“I know you can, which is why I’m giving this to you,”

She looked at Han before slowly taking the blaster from his hand, letting its weight drag her hand a little to her hip. She fixed it so it felt comfortable in her grip, extending her arm and closing one eye as if she was going to aim and fire.

“Know how to use it?”

“Pull the trigger,”

Han stifled a laugh, “It’s more than that, and I know you know it,”

Rey looked to him and smiled, “I just wanted to mess with you.”

She looked back to the blaster and to the forest, lake, and castle beyond them. Rey and Han were silent for a moment before the latter spoke up.

“Y’know, Rey, I’ve been thinking about bringing on some crew. A second mate. Someone to help Chewie and I out on the Falcon, knows how to respect a ship like her. Poe Dameron’s too trigger happy for my taste, so don’t bring this up to him, and _definitely_ don’t tell him I said that, either,”

“Han Solo,” Rey turned to him, an eye raised even though her eyes and growing smile couldn’t hide her excitement, “are you offering me a job?”

“I wouldn’t be nice to you,” he raised his index finger to point at her face, though Rey knew better than to be intimidated, “doesn’t pay much, either,”

“You’re offering me a job,”

“I’m _thinking_ about it, don’t twist my words.”

Rey smiled, a goofy smile that almost made Han smile, too, before the young girl’s face fell. She wanted to say yes, but deep down she knew she couldn’t. There was a line she had made for herself, a quick decision she made while running from the First Order and Unkar Plutt’s thugs on Jakku with Poe, Finn, and BB-8, but a decision she was going to keep.

“Well, whaddaya say?” Han’s voice was soft, as if he was trying to ease the answer out of her.

“If you gave me the offer, I’d be flattered,” Rey looked down at the blaster in her hand, letting her hand fall to her side with the blaster still grasped in her hand, “but I have to go back,”

“To Jakku?” Han looked at her, an eyebrow raised and eyes never leaving the features of her face.

Rey waited a beat, “I’ve already been gone for too long,”

“Take it from me, kid,” Han patted her back before heading off toward the worn path that led to the castle not too far away ahead of them, “staying on one planet gets _really_ boring after about a decade.”

Rey said nothing, watching the man walk away with his hands in his pockets with Chewbacca close behind. She took a breath, placing the blaster she’d been given into the empty hollister on her waist and jogged to meet up with everyone else.


End file.
